Drake Bell is addressing his prior guilty plea for 'crimes against a child' nearly three years ago. The former Nickelodeon star was sentenced to two years' probation by an Ohio judge in 2021 after pleading guilty to criminal charges involving a minor. Now, Bell is shedding light on why he pleaded guilty even though he stands behind the notion that the allegations made against him were 'not true.
ended up finding out that I was talking to someone that I shouldn’t have been talking to, and it snowballed into these allegations that were not true, and it just turned into this big thing,' he continued. In 2021, the female victim was 19 and accused Bell of being a pedophile. She also accused him of sexual misconduct on two occasions, and of sending her 'blatantly' sexual photos and messages when she was a teen.
But now, where I am in my life now, I think that I’m finally at a place where I can process and deal with this through therapy, that I’ve been through and actively going through, unearthing all of these things and being able to face them head-on for, really, the first time in my life.
He continued, 'The abuse was extensive. And it got pretty brutal, pretty brutal. I don’t know, I really don’t know how to elaborate on that on camera really.' When asked by a producer what he would feel comfortable talking about, Bell said, 'Why don’t you do this, why don’t you think of the worst stuff that someone can do to somebody as a sexual assault and that’ll answer your question. I don’t know how else to put it. It was not a one-time thing.
Nickelodeon issued a statement to Fox News Digital regarding the alleged behaviors on past production sets. 'Though we cannot corroborate or negate allegations of behaviors from productions decades ago, Nickelodeon as a matter of policy investigates all formal complaints as part of our commitment to fostering a safe and professional workplace environment free of harassment or other kinds of inappropriate conduct,' the statement said.